We are big fans of pizza — and fans of big pizza — at Babes HQ. The Babes About Town guide to London’s finest pizzas was one of our more popular posts. So when a chap called Marcin invited us to try out his portable pizza oven, it was an offer we couldn’t refuse (cue Godfather theme music). Pizza United** is a family-run business and they also happen to be the exclusive UK distributors of the Optima Pizza Express Napoli. This is a portable pizza oven designed to make restaurant-quality wood fired pizzas in the comfort of your kitchen.
Optima Pizza Express Napoli Oven: Make Wood Fired Pizza at Home
When the package arrived, I was slightly alarmed by the size of the box. Where would I stack such a thing? Fortunately, the pizza oven itself is fairly compact and should fit on the average countertop. It’s a handsome piece of kit too, in fire engine red and designed by Italian native Gabriele Ferrari.
‘Is it pizza for dinner?’
The 12-year-old was chomping at the bit. I said sure if he would be my assistant pizzaiolo. However, after reading the instructions, I realised this wasn’t going to be the quick meal I’d imagined. The recipe card suggested we make the pizza dough and let it sit in the fridge for up to three days for maximum flavour (you can also freeze batches for later use).
Marcin had kindly included bags of flour (white, wholewheat and gluten free), dry yeast and tinned tomatoes to help us create pizzas. I made my own marinara sauce to use with toppings of ham, mushroom, pepperoni and grated mozzarella. Yum.
Kids Love Making Pizza Dough At Home
Making pizza dough is a fun activity to do with kids of any age as it’s tactile, messy play. There’s an art to it too although for us newbies it was mostly trial and error.
We had to make a few adjustments since we were using dry yeast as opposed to the fresh yeast proposed by the recipe. But we weren’t aiming for perfection, just great tasting pizzas. And I’m happy to say the Optima Pizza Express Napoli pizza oven delivered.
Authentic pizza dough might take days to get ready but the pizza oven itself takes minutes. You have to heat the oven for about 12 minutes to get things started. After that, you use the wooden spatulas provided to slide your pizza onto the oven and get cooking.
Be extra careful using the pizza oven when it’s on as it gets extremely hot. The Optima Pizza Express Napoli heats up to 450°C in just 10-15 minute — the same temperature as a professional pizza oven! It’s useful to have an assistant as operating it alone can be fiddly. If I could make a design change, I’d add an extra handle on the bottom to stabilise it when you open and close the lid.
Fast and Delicious Wood Fired Pizzas
The booklet recommended 4-5 minutes per pizza. That was too long for our first pizza which was overly charred on the bottom. We timed our next pizzas for 3 and a half minutes each and they turned out perfect. Delicious pizzas with that smoky, wood-fired taste. We devoured our pizzas so quickly that the next time, I decided to try a faster recipe. Why spend days waiting for something that’s wolfed in seconds?!
Pizza Express (the restaurant) had posted their Margherita pizza recipe online during lockdown. So we made a version of it with our own toppings that took around half an hour from start to finish. They turned out nicely although I could definitely tell the difference in flavour. However, the boys wolfed them down and gave the quickie pizzas four thumbs up.
You can also make calzone, flatbread, frozen pizza and more with the oven. We’ll keep experimenting. My goal is for the boys to add it to their repertoire of meals they can make alone, while mum and dad put our feet up. I’ll let you know how that goes. One thing I can say is the Optima Pizza Express Napoli oven is excellent value for money because we haven’t ordered a takeaway pizza since!
The Optima Pizza Express Napoli oven costs £169 retail and is manufactured in Italy but fitted with a standard UK plug. You can get a £10 discount using the code BABESABOUTTOWN at checkout.
Find out more at pizzaunited.co.uk
Read more reviews:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/reviews/optima-pizza-express-napoli-pizza-oven-review
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/pizzaunited.co.uk
**Pizza United gifted us with an oven for this review. All opinions are strictly our own. They are also offering a pizza oven to our followers, giveaway details coming soon. Stay tuned!
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Would be class to be able to make my own pizza with this if I won
I would bin the BBQ and have a Pizza party, I mean any excuse for pizza but with this bad boy summer evenings, Pizza in oven wine in hand, living the Dream
I’d make a pepperoni pizza in that thing. Not sure which shape I’d settle on though…
I am vegan and at last would be able to make myself a decent pizza with lots of stunning fresh vegetables
Wow this is needed in my life! Your pizza came out looking so good!
The OPTIMA PIZZA EXPRESS NAPOLI Oven really rings all bells and whistles, would experiment and create imaginative and mouth watering pizzas, a sumptuous prize.
where can you buy in the USA?
I don’t have those details I’m afraid, it’s worth searching for the brand name or you can contact the manufacturers directly!